Blog & News

Grassroots Collaborative Joins the Partnership!

Welcome to our newest affiliate

We're excited to announce that Grassroots Collaborative, a powerhouse coalition based in Chicago, has affiliated with the Partnership for Working Families.

Grassroots Collaborative builds power with working families through strategic community-labor organizing, grassroots leadership development, civic engagement, and training. The Collaborative unites eleven community and labor organizations that organize around issues of economic and racial justice, representing over 125,000 Illinois residents. Its members take on entrenched corporate and political power structures to affect policy change and return wealth to impoverished communities.

"We are very excited to be joining the Partnership for Working Families," said Grassroots Collaborative Executive Director Amisha Patel. "In this time of increasing attacks on our communities, it is more important than ever that we come together to learn from each other and build new broad coalitions. We look forward to seeing all that we can accomplish together."

Our network has many areas of deep alignment with Grassroots Collaborative. Like many of us, they work to win progressive revenue solutions to fight the austerity measures that are devastating working families. The capture of local and state government by the financial industry is core to their analysis, and their strategies reflect that. They have demonstrated the possibilities in what we call “bargaining for the common good,” uniting the leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union and SEIU Healthcare with strong community organizations like Action Now and ONE Northside, to name just a few, and together they forced Mayor Emanuel to issue Executive Orders returning $110 million from the TIF (tax increment financing) slush fund.

As the Partnership deepens our commitment to contesting for power in our regions and leveraging that up to state and national change, we are thrilled to have new partners like Grassroots Collaborative. Now 19 affiliates strong, we are piloting new models of trans-local campaigning, taking on white supremacy and corporate capture, and building our long-term agenda.

We are looking forward to struggling alongside the Grassroots Collaborative, learning from each other’s successes, and finding ways that we can join forces for a stronger movement.